December 11
Silversmiths in Yanaka
25/12/11 15:45
Yanaka is one of the least changed areas in Tokyo.
Spared by chance from the great firestorms of World
War II, you can get an idea of how old Tokyo looked.
Narrow lanes run between wooden houses of vertical
boards topped with over heavy tile roofs, old and new
temples, a long shopping street lined with craft
shops and snack bars, and the biggest Buddhist
cemetery in Tokyo, where the ashes of the great and
the famous fertilise Sakura and Maple, the not so
famous homeless sleep amongst the tombstones, and the
young and in love find little spaces to be alone.
The village has always been something of a magnet for artists and writers. The rents are cheap, the streets full of life and colour, noodle bars and little izakaya (taverns serving snack food), sakabata (flags) fluttering in the wind, tiny galleries selling old photographs, or hand knitted leg warmers, woven bamboo or sumei paintings, all sandwiched just far enough from the base money making downtown and industry in the suburbs.
And at the end of each October, the village holds an exhibition, to celebrate the return of the cool weather; the galleries put out their wares on benches and maybe, just maybe, sell enough to take the artists through the winter nursing a sake in the warmth of the local izakaya.
We wandered over one Saturday, to check out Jim’s exhibition. He’s our sumei teacher. He came from New York for the summer twenty years ago and never left. He prints and engraves, makes banjos out of broken shamisens, plays jazz to old ladies in their kimonos, and squashes ten yen coins on the local railway track to engrave the flattened copper discs into little medallions. He wasn’t there, but we supped green tea with his wife and some friends, admired the prints, and decided that we couldn’t afford hatchi man yen just now thank you very much.
On the way back, one of the older houses was exhibiting a collection of silver brooches and other ware on a shelf in the window. The house, like many others in Yanaka looks rather dilapidated, more shack than house. But inside there was a small front room, a raised platform measuring six or so tatami mats, and a low table made of a single block of wood on two trunks. Along one side, under the window, Sato-san has his workbench, anvil, torch, and the tools from 70 years smithing.
I sat on the step and admired a bowl and a teapot under repair, and we exchanged information, like where we were from, and yes we liked Japan, and he had learnt silversmithing as a boy, and I have retired, and all the things we could talk about with my ten words of Japanese and his ten words of Eigo.
“I’m 83” he told me. “How old are you?”
“61” I say.
“Ah,” he says, “a mere youngster.”
Meanwhile, Linda, fingered the wares and admired a rather elegant silver brooch in the shape of a maple leaf. We bought a much smaller and cheaper turtle with a tail and legs that wiggled, and a braid to attach to a phone, bowed to Sato-san and went on our merry way ogling a very beautiful but expensive Sumei painting in the gallery further along the lane.
“Ha,” I thought “it’s Linda’s birthday in December.”
So the following week, I went back to Yanaka to buy the brooch. No luck, Sato-san was not in. I went back the following week on my way to an acting job, and the window was open. I called through the window, and Sato-san appeared through the curtains at the back all smiles and welcome.
I took off my shoes, and we sat at the low table and I looked around for signs of any brooches, turtles, or maple leaves. There were none, nor any silver ware of any sort, except for the teapot, still awaiting repair. After several minutes of my stumbling Japanese, I managed to explain we had seen a rather attractive brooch during the exhibition, and, as it was “tanjoubi no oksan” in a couple of weeks, “sumimaisen broochi wa Ikura desu ka?”
His face lit up, and he went to the back of the shop, pulling open drawers and boxes, emptying paper onto the floor, until he found a pendant, decorated with gold, silver, and copper discs, on a black background and brought it back to the table in great triumph. His wife brought tea, and we sat round the table trying to converse, while Sato-san inscribed the back of the pendant with “Linda”, found a chain, hunted out a box, set the pendant in the box, wrapped the box in special washi paper, all of which took about an hour and a half. By which time I was beginning to wonder if I would make the audition, or be able to get up from the table with my stiff and sore knees.
He finally finished the inscribing, the mounting and the careful wrapping and I asked to pay.
He would not take a single yen. He said he was so pleased to be asked, I had made him a very happy man, so it was his gift to my wife. His wife laughed, probably at my embarrassment, and said something to the effect of “He likes doing this sort of thing, and I was to be sure to go and get a proper chain, as the one he had given me wasn’t real gold you know”. I was relieved by that.
And as I backed out the shop, thanking them in my awful awful Japanese, they knelt on the floor and gave the deep bow.
How generous of time and thought, how precious, how delightful.
Japanese are incredibly generous, sometimes one has to be careful not to admire something to much; When Will Fergusson was hitching round Japan (Hitchhiking with Buddha) he almost ended up with a Bonsai in his backpack, having admired the skill of the artist a little too enthusiastically. I suspect Sato-san may be partially retired, but Jim told me he still teaches students; Sato-san might have been selling the silver pieces on behalf of his students or have sold his entire stock. Who knows?
The village has always been something of a magnet for artists and writers. The rents are cheap, the streets full of life and colour, noodle bars and little izakaya (taverns serving snack food), sakabata (flags) fluttering in the wind, tiny galleries selling old photographs, or hand knitted leg warmers, woven bamboo or sumei paintings, all sandwiched just far enough from the base money making downtown and industry in the suburbs.
And at the end of each October, the village holds an exhibition, to celebrate the return of the cool weather; the galleries put out their wares on benches and maybe, just maybe, sell enough to take the artists through the winter nursing a sake in the warmth of the local izakaya.
We wandered over one Saturday, to check out Jim’s exhibition. He’s our sumei teacher. He came from New York for the summer twenty years ago and never left. He prints and engraves, makes banjos out of broken shamisens, plays jazz to old ladies in their kimonos, and squashes ten yen coins on the local railway track to engrave the flattened copper discs into little medallions. He wasn’t there, but we supped green tea with his wife and some friends, admired the prints, and decided that we couldn’t afford hatchi man yen just now thank you very much.
On the way back, one of the older houses was exhibiting a collection of silver brooches and other ware on a shelf in the window. The house, like many others in Yanaka looks rather dilapidated, more shack than house. But inside there was a small front room, a raised platform measuring six or so tatami mats, and a low table made of a single block of wood on two trunks. Along one side, under the window, Sato-san has his workbench, anvil, torch, and the tools from 70 years smithing.
I sat on the step and admired a bowl and a teapot under repair, and we exchanged information, like where we were from, and yes we liked Japan, and he had learnt silversmithing as a boy, and I have retired, and all the things we could talk about with my ten words of Japanese and his ten words of Eigo.
“I’m 83” he told me. “How old are you?”
“61” I say.
“Ah,” he says, “a mere youngster.”
Meanwhile, Linda, fingered the wares and admired a rather elegant silver brooch in the shape of a maple leaf. We bought a much smaller and cheaper turtle with a tail and legs that wiggled, and a braid to attach to a phone, bowed to Sato-san and went on our merry way ogling a very beautiful but expensive Sumei painting in the gallery further along the lane.
“Ha,” I thought “it’s Linda’s birthday in December.”
So the following week, I went back to Yanaka to buy the brooch. No luck, Sato-san was not in. I went back the following week on my way to an acting job, and the window was open. I called through the window, and Sato-san appeared through the curtains at the back all smiles and welcome.
I took off my shoes, and we sat at the low table and I looked around for signs of any brooches, turtles, or maple leaves. There were none, nor any silver ware of any sort, except for the teapot, still awaiting repair. After several minutes of my stumbling Japanese, I managed to explain we had seen a rather attractive brooch during the exhibition, and, as it was “tanjoubi no oksan” in a couple of weeks, “sumimaisen broochi wa Ikura desu ka?”
His face lit up, and he went to the back of the shop, pulling open drawers and boxes, emptying paper onto the floor, until he found a pendant, decorated with gold, silver, and copper discs, on a black background and brought it back to the table in great triumph. His wife brought tea, and we sat round the table trying to converse, while Sato-san inscribed the back of the pendant with “Linda”, found a chain, hunted out a box, set the pendant in the box, wrapped the box in special washi paper, all of which took about an hour and a half. By which time I was beginning to wonder if I would make the audition, or be able to get up from the table with my stiff and sore knees.
He finally finished the inscribing, the mounting and the careful wrapping and I asked to pay.
He would not take a single yen. He said he was so pleased to be asked, I had made him a very happy man, so it was his gift to my wife. His wife laughed, probably at my embarrassment, and said something to the effect of “He likes doing this sort of thing, and I was to be sure to go and get a proper chain, as the one he had given me wasn’t real gold you know”. I was relieved by that.
And as I backed out the shop, thanking them in my awful awful Japanese, they knelt on the floor and gave the deep bow.
How generous of time and thought, how precious, how delightful.
Japanese are incredibly generous, sometimes one has to be careful not to admire something to much; When Will Fergusson was hitching round Japan (Hitchhiking with Buddha) he almost ended up with a Bonsai in his backpack, having admired the skill of the artist a little too enthusiastically. I suspect Sato-san may be partially retired, but Jim told me he still teaches students; Sato-san might have been selling the silver pieces on behalf of his students or have sold his entire stock. Who knows?